"It is not the only
logical explanation. For example, you could be hallucinating after
being hit on the head by, say, a coconut."

- as
the voice of Mr Spock from The Big Bang Theory,
The Transporter Malfunction (2012)

LEONARD NIMOY

The mineral "Yominium
Sulfide" in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), is named after
him. The first five letters "Yominium" spell
"Nimoy" backwards.

Leonard Simon Nimoy (born
March 26, 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet, singer and
photographer. Nimoy is best known for his role of Spock in the
original Star Trek series (196669), and in multiple film,
television, and video game sequels. He was born in the West End of
Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish
immigrants from Iziaslav, Soviet Union (now Ukraine). His parents
left Iziaslav separately (his father first walking over the border
into Poland) and reunited in the United States. His mother, Dora
(née Spinner), was a homemaker, and his father, Max Nimoy,
owned a barbershop.

Nimoy began acting at the age of 8 in a
children's and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend
college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the
accordion, with which, his father advised, Nimoy could always make a
living, but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor.

His
first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of
Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!, which dealt with the struggles of a
matriarchal Jewish family during the Great Depression. Nimoy said the
role "lit a passion" that led him to pursue an acting
career. "I never wanted to do anything else."

Nimoy took drama classes at Boston College
and at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he became a devotee of
Stanislavski's Method acting concepts and method actor Marlon Brando
was a role model. Between studies, to have some income, he took a job
at an ice cream parlor on the Sunset Strip.

He had an MA in Education from Antioch
College, an honorary doctorate from Antioch University in Ohio,
awarded for activism in Holocaust remembrance, the arts, and the
environment, and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Boston University.

Nimoy
began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in
Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through
the 1950s, as well as playing the title role in Kid Monk Baroni.
Foreshadowing his fame as a semi-alien, he played Narab, one of three
Martian invaders in the 1952 movie serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (left).

In 1953, Nimoy enlisted in the United
States Army Reserve at Fort McPherson Georgia, serving for 18 months
until 1955, leaving as a sergeant. Part of Nimoy's time in the
military was spent with the Army Special Services, putting on shows
which he wrote, narrated, and emceed. During that period, he also
directed and starred in A Streetcar Named Desire, with the Atlanta
Theater Guild.

Nimoy believed that playing the title role
in the 1952 film Kid Monk Baroni would make him a star, but later
said that "it played about three days as a second bill somewhere
in Hollywood and then died." While serving in the military the
film gained a larger audience on television, and Nimoy said that
after his discharge "I began to work steadily as a 'heavy.' I
learned to use a switchblade and a gun, how to kick people, hit
people, choke 'em, threaten 'em, torture 'em, all the nice things
heavies do." He played more than 50 small parts
in B movies, television series such as Perry Mason and Dragnet, but
to support his family, he often did other work, such as delivering
newspapers and even owned a pet store in Canoga Park, California
during the 1960s.

Nimoy played an Army
sergeant in the 1954 science fiction thriller Them! (above) and a
professor in the 1958 science fiction movie The Brain Eaters. On
television, Nimoy appeared as "Sonarman" in two episodes of
the 19571958 syndicated military drama The Silent Service,
based on actual events of the submarine section of the United States
Navy. He had guest roles in the Sea Hunt series (below left) from
1958 to 1960 and a minor role in the 1961 The Twilight Zone episode
"A Quality of Mercy" (below right). He also appeared in the
syndicated Highway Patrol starring Broderick Crawford.

In 1959, Nimoy was cast as
Luke Reid in the "Night of Decision" episode of the ABC/Warner
Bros. western series Colt .45, starring Wayde Preston and directed
by Leslie H. Martinson. He would go on to guest star numerours shows
in the 60's including Bonanza (1960), The Rebel (1960), Two
Faces West (1961), Rawhide (1961), The Untouchables (1962), The
Eleventh Hour (1962), Perry Mason (1963; playing murderer Pete
Chennery in "The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe", episode 13
of season 6), Combat! (1963, 1965), Daniel Boone and Get Smart (1966).

He
appeared four times in ethnic roles on NBC's Wagon Train, the No. 1
program in 1962. He portrayed Bernabe Zamora in "The Estaban
Zamora Story" (1959), "Cherokee Ned" in "The
Maggie Hamilton Story" (1960), Joaquin Delgado in "The
Tiburcio Mendez Story" (1961), and Emeterio Vasquez in "The
Baylor Crowfoot Story" (1962). He appeared in an episode
of The Outer Limits in 1964 and again in the 1995. He also made two
appearaces on Gunsmoke, once in 1962 as Arnie and again in 1966 as
John Walking Fox.

Nimoy
guest starred in The Virginian (1963-1965; first working with Star
Trek co-star DeForest Kelley in "Man of Violence", episode
14 of season 2, in 1963).

Nimoy and Star Trek co-star
William Shatner first worked together on an episode of The Man from
U.N.C.L.E., "The Project Strigas Affair" (1964 right).
Their characters were from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, Nimoy
was the villain, with Shatner playing a reluctant U.N.C.L.E. recruit.

Along with David McCallum,
Cliff Robertson, Barbara Rush and Peter Breck, he is one of only five
actors to appear in both The Outer Limits (1963) and The Outer Limits (1995).

In 1965, he made his first
appearance as Spock in the rejected Star Trek pilot, "The
Cage," (above) followed by three seasons of the Star Trek
original series. He went on to reprise the Spock character in
Star Trek: The Animated Series and two episodes of Star Trek: The
Next Generation. When a new Star Trek series was planned in the late
1970s, Nimoy was to be in only two out of eleven episodes, but when
the show was elevated to a feature film, he agreed to reprise his
role. The first six Star Trek movies feature the original Star Trek
cast including Nimoy. He played the elder Spock in the 2009 Star Trek
movie and reprised the role in a brief appearance in the 2013 sequel,
Star Trek Into Darkness, both directed by J. J. Abrams. Nimoy was
given casting approval over who would play the young Spock in the
2009 Star Trek film.

After directing a few television show
episodes, Nimoy started film directing in 1984 with the third
installment of the film series. Nimoy would go on to direct the
second most successful film (critically and financially) in the
franchise after the 2009 Star Trek film, Star Trek IV: The Voyage
Home (1986), and Three Men and a Baby, the highest grossing film of 1987.

His
character of Spock has had a significant cultural impact and
garnered Nimoy three Emmy Award nominations; TV Guide named Spock one
of the 50 greatest TV characters. Along with Majel Barrett, he is one
of only two actors to appear in both the first and last episodes of
the original Star Trek series, to appear in every episode of the
original series and to (along with Barrett) appear on Star Trek in
every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s.

On the stage, Nimoy played the lead role
in a short run of Gore Vidal's Visit to a Small Planet in 1968
(shortly before the end of the original Star Trek series) at the
Pheasant Run Playhouse in St. Charles, Illinois.

In 2014, Walter Koenig revealed in a Las
Vegas Sun interview that Leonard Nimoy personally and successfully
advocated equal pay for both his and Nichelle Nichols' work on Star
Trek to the show's producers during the Desilu years.

Following Star Trek in 1969, Nimoy
immediately joined the cast of the spy series Mission: Impossible
(below), which was seeking a replacement for Martin Landau. Nimoy was
cast in the role of Paris, an IMF agent who was an ex-magician and
make-up expert, "The Great Paris". He played the role
during seasons four and five (19691971). Nimoy had strongly
been considered as part of the initial cast for the show, but
remained in the Spock role on Star Trek.

Nimoy co-starred with Yul Brynner and
Richard Crenna in the Western movie Catlow (1971). He also had roles
in two episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1972 and 1973) and
Columbo (1973) where he played a murderous doctor who was one of the
few criminals with whom Columbo became angry. Nimoy appeared in
various made for television films such as Assault on the Wayne
(1970), Baffled! (1972), The Alpha Caper (1973), The Missing Are
Deadly (1974), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978, below with
Donald Sutherland), Seizure: The Story Of Kathy Morris (1980) and
Marco Polo (1982). He received an Emmy Award nomination for best
supporting actor for the television film A Woman Called Golda (1982),
for playing the role of Morris Meyerson, Golda Meir's husband
opposite Ingrid Bergman as Golda in her final role.

During this time, Nimoy also won acclaim
for a series of stage roles. He appeared in such plays as Vincent
(1981), Fiddler on the Roof, The Man in the Glass Booth, Oliver!, 6
Rms Riv Vu, Full Circle, Camelot, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
The King and I, Caligula, The Four Poster, Twelfth Night, Sherlock
Holmes, Equus and My Fair Lady.

Nimoy hosted the
documentary series In Search of...(1976), Ancient Mysteries (1994)
and narrated Civilization IV, as well as making several well-received
stage appearances. Nimoy also appeared in several popular
television series, including Futurama and The Simpsons, as both
himself and Spock.

In 1994, Nimoy performed as Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde in The Pagemaster. In 1998, he had a leading role as
Mustapha Mond in Brave New World, a TV-movie version of Aldous
Huxley's novel.

In 1995, Leonard returned
to the Ponderosa, starring in Bonanza Under Attack. In 2001,
Nimoy voiced the role of the Atlantean King Kashekim Nedakh in the
Disney animated feature Atlantis: The Lost Empire which featured
Michael J. Fox voicing the lead role. Nimoy also had a
recurring role in the science fiction series Fringe (2009) as
"Dr. William Bell".

Nimoy also came up with the concept of the
"Vulcan Nerve Pinch," which he suggested as a replacement
for the scripted knock out method of using the butt of his phaser. He
wanted a more sophisticated way an unarmed Spock could
overpower an adversary without resorting to violence. Nimoy
explained the idea of putting his hand on his neck and shoulder to
Shatner, and they rehearsed it. Nimoy credits Shatner's acting during
the "pinch" that sold the idea: "It was his reaction
that really makes you believe it really works."

The sign that Spock makes
with his hand is half of what is commonly done by the Cohanim, the
Jewish Priests, when they bless the congregation.

Nimoy received a star on
the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6651 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood,
California on January 16th, 1985.

In 1987 Nimoy played Spock
in the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-part episode
"Unification". Because of his schedule, part two was filmed
before part one.

Nimoy's fame as Spock was such that both
of his autobiographies, I Am Not Spock (1975) and I Am Spock (1995),
were written from the viewpoint of sharing his existence with the character.

Nimoy voiced the reemerged
Megatron, known as Galvatron, in the animated Transformers: The Movie
(1986). Nimoy's wife, Susan Bay, is a cousin of Michael Bay who would
bring a live action Transformers (2007) to the big screen and Nimoy
would provide the voice of Sentinel Prime in the sequel,
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2001).

Selected Leonard
NimoyFilmography

1951

Rhubarb

1952

Kid Monk Baroni

1952

Zombies of the Stratosphere

1952

Francis Goes to West Point

1953

Old Overland Trail

1954

Them!

1958

The Brain Eaters

1961

87th Precinct

1963

The Balcony

1966

Deathwatch

1971

Assault on the Wayne

1971

Catlow

1973

Baffled!

1974

Rex Harrison Presents Stories of Love

1978

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

1979

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

1981

Vincent

1982

A Woman Called Golda

1982

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

1984

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

1984

The Sun Also Rises

1986

The Transformers: The Movie

1986

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

1989

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

1991

Never Forget

1991

Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories

1991

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

1994

The Pagemaster

1995

Titanica

1997

A Life Apart: Hasidism in America

1997

David

1998

The Harryhausen Chronicles

1998

Brave New World

2000

Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists

2001

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

2009

Star Trek

2009

Land of the Lost

2011

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2012

Zambezia

2013

Star Trek Into Darkness

Writting credits include
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek IV: The Voyage
Home. Nimoy made his directorial debut in 1973, directing the
"Death On A Barge" segment for an episode of Night Gallery
during its final season. It wouldn't be until the early 1980s that
Nimoy resumed directing at a consistent basis, ranging from
television shows to motion pictures. He directed Star Trek III: The
Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and also directed
the 1984 The Bangles video: "Going Down to Liverpool". He
also directed the 1987 film Three Men and a Baby. His final
directorial credit was in 1995 for the episode "Killshot",
the pilot for the television series Deadly Games.

Nimoys stage credits
include: "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oliver",
"Camelot" and "Equus". He Is an avid writer of
poetry and has written a number of books including, "I Am Not
Spock" (1977) and "I Am Spock" (1995). Also in 1995 he
released a book of photographs, "The Full Body Project".

Nimoy has remained good
friends with Star Trek co-star William Shatner and was best man at
Shatner's third marriage in 1997. He also remained good friends with
DeForest Kelley until Kelley's death in 1999. Like his friend William
Shatner, Nimoy suffers from tinnitus (ringing in the ears), which is
a symptom of hearing loss. Nimoy and Shatner likely got it filming a
Star Trek episode called "Arena" (1967), where he and
Shatner stood close to a special effects explosion resulting in Nimoy
having tinnitus in his right ear and Shatner having it in his left ear.

Nimoy has appeared in
episodes of six different series with William Shatner: The Man from
U.N.C.L.E. (1964), Mission: Impossible (1966), Star Trek (1966), Star
Trek: The Animated Series (1973), T.J. Hooker (1982) and Futurama (1999).

In
the May 9th, 2009 episode of Saturday Night Live, Nimoy appeared as
a surprise guest in the "Weekend Update" segment with
Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine, who play the young Spock and Kirk in
the Star Trek reboot that had just premiered a few days earlier. In
the sketch, Quinto and Pine attempt to appease long-time Trekkers by
assuring them that the new film would be true to the original Star
Trek. When the two indicated that they had been the target of
harassment and threats by Trekkers, Nimoy appeared, assuring them
that fans would enjoy the new film. When host Seth Meyers surmised
that Nimoy was about to say that to not do so would be illogical,
Nimoy stated, "No, I was going to say was to not like it would
make them dickheads."

In April 2010, Leonard Nimoy announced
that he was retiring from playing Spock, citing both his advanced age
and the desire to give Zachary Quinto the opportunity to enjoy full
media attention with the Spock character. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by
Sleep was to be his final performance. However, in February 2011, he
announced his definite plan to return to Fringe and reprise his role
as William Bell. His retirement from acting did not include voice
acting, as his appearance in the third season of Fringe includes his
voice (his character appears only in animated scenes), and he
provided the voice of Sentinel Prime in Transformers: Dark of the
Moon. In May 2011, Nimoy made a cameo appearance in the alternate
version music video of Bruno Mars' "The Lazy Song". Aaron
Bay-Schuck, the Atlantic Records executive who signed Bruno Mars to
the label, is Nimoy's stepson. Nimoy provided the voice of Spock as a
guest star in a Season 5 episode of the CBS sitcom, The Big Bang
Theory (seen below on set with the cast). The episode is titled
"The Transporter Malfunction" and aired on March 29th,
2012. On August 30th, 2012, Nimoy narrated a satirical segment about
Mitt Romney's life on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart. In 2013, Nimoy reprised his role as Spock Prime in a cameo
appearance in the film Star Trek Into Darkness.

Nimoy had long been active in the Jewish
community. He could speak and read Yiddish, his first language. Nimoy
was married twice. In 1954, he married actress Sandra Zober
(19272011), whom he divorced in 1987. On New Year's Day of
1989, he married actress Susan Bay, cousin of director Michael Bay.

In a 2001 DVD, Nimoy revealed that he
became an alcoholic while working on Star Trek and ended up in drug
rehabilitation. William Shatner, in his 2008 book Up Till Now: The
Autobiography, spoke about how later in their lives, Nimoy tried to
help Shatner's alcoholic wife, Nerine Kidd.

Nimoy
has said that the character of Spock, which he played twelve to
fourteen hours a day, five days a week, influenced his personality in
private life. Each weekend during the original run of the series, he
would be in character throughout Saturday and into Sunday, behaving
more like Spock than himself, more logical, more rational, more
thoughtful, less emotional and finding a calm in every situation. It
was only on Sunday in the early afternoon that Spock's influence on
his behavior would fade off and he would feel more himself again,
only to start the cycle over again on Monday morning. Years after the
show he wrote that "To this day, I sense Vulcan speech patterns,
Vulcan social attitudes and even Vulcan patterns of logic and
emotional suppression in my behavior."

Nimoy was a private pilot and had owned an
airplane. The Space Foundation named Nimoy as the recipient of the
2010 Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award for creating a positive
role model that inspired untold numbers of viewers to learn more
about the universe.

In 2009, Nimoy was honored by his
childhood hometown when the Office of Mayor Thomas Menino proclaimed
the date of November 14th, 2009, as Leonard Nimoy Day in the City of Boston.

Nimoy's interest in photography began in
childhood; for the rest of his life, he owned a camera that he
rebuilt at the age of 13. In the 1970s studied photography at the
University of California, Los Angeles. His photography studies at
UCLA occurred after Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, when Nimoy
seriously considered changing careers. His work has been exhibited at
the R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, Massachusetts and the
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Nimoy
authored two volumes of autobiography. The first was called I Am Not
Spock (1975) and was controversial, as many fans incorrectly assumed
that Nimoy was distancing himself from the Spock character. In the
book, Nimoy conducts dialogues between himself and Spock. The
contents of this first autobiography also touched on a
self-proclaimed "identity crisis" that seemed to haunt
Nimoy throughout his career. It also related to an apparent love/hate
relationship with the character of Spock and the Trek franchise.

I went through a definite identity crisis.
The question was whether to embrace Mr. Spock or to fight the
onslaught of public interest. I realize now that I really had no
choice in the matter. Spock and Star Trek were very much alive and
there wasn't anything that I could do to change that.

The second volume, I Am Spock (1995), saw
Nimoy communicating that he finally realized his years of portraying
the Spock character had led to a much greater identification between
the fictional character and himself. Nimoy had much input into how
Spock would act in certain situations, and conversely, Nimoy's
contemplation of how Spock acted gave him cause to think about things
in a way that he never would have thought if he had not portrayed the
character. As such, in this autobiography Nimoy maintains that in
some meaningful sense he has merged with Spock while at the same time
maintaining the distance between fact and fiction.

Nimoy also composed several volumes of
poetry, some published along with a number of his photographs. A
later poetic volume entitled A Lifetime of Love: Poems on the
Passages of Life was published in 2002. His poetry can be found in
the Contemporary Poets index of The HyperTexts. Nimoy adapted and
starred in the one-man play Vincent (1981), based on the play Van
Gogh (1979) by Phillip Stephens.

In 1995, Nimoy was involved in the
production of Primortals, a comic book series published by Tekno
Comix about first contact with aliens, which had arisen from a
discussion he had with Isaac Asimov. There was a novelization by
Steve Perry.

During
and following Star Trek, Nimoy also released five albums of musical
vocal recordings on Dot Records. On his first album, Mr. Spock's
Music from Outer Space, and half of his second album Two Sides of
Leonard Nimoy, science fiction-themed songs are featured where Nimoy
sings as Spock. On his final three albums, he sings popular folk
songs of the era and cover versions of popular songs, such as
"Proud Mary" and Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line".
There are also several songs on the later albums that were written or
co-written by Nimoy. He described how his recording career got started:

Charles Grean of Dot Records had arranged
with the studio to do an album of space music based on music from
Star Trek, and he has a teenage daughter who's a fan of the show and
a fan of Mr. Spock. She said, 'Well, if you're going to do an album
of music from Star Trek, then Mr. Spock should be on the album.' So
Dot contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in either
speaking or singing on the record. I said I was very interested in
doing both. ... That was the first album we did, which was called Mr.
Spock's Music from Outer Space. It was very well received and
successful enough that Dot then approached me and asked me to sign a
long-term contract.

Nimoy's voice appeared in sampled form on
a song by the pop band Information Society in the late Eighties. The
song, "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" (released in
1988), reached No. 3 on the US Pop charts, and No. 1 on the Dance charts.

Nimoy played the part of the chauffeur in
the 1985 music video of The Bangles' cover version of "Going
Down to Liverpool". He also appeared in the alternate music
video for the song "The Lazy Song" by pop artist Bruno Mars.

In
2014, shortly after he was photographed in a wheelchair and using an
oxygen mask, Nimoy revealed that he has been diagnosed with Chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease. On Twitter, he said: 'I quit smoking
30 yrs ago. Not soon enough. I have COPD. Grandpa says, quit now!!
LLAP (Live Long and Prosper)'.

On February 19th, 2015,
Nimoy was taken to UCLA Medical Center for chest pain and had been in
and out of hospitals for the "past several months." He died
on February 27th, 2015 at the age of 83 in his Bel Air home from
complications of COPD. He is survived by his wife, two children, six
grandchildren and a great-grandchild. A few days before his death,
Nimoy shared some of his poetry on social media website Twitter:
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not
preserved, except in memory. LLAP".

On Twitter, William Shatner
wrote of Nimoy, "I loved him like a brother. ... We will all
miss his humor, his talent, and his capacity to love." George
Takei stated, "The word extraordinary is often overused, but I
think it's really appropriate for Leonard. He was an extraordinarily
talented man, but he was also a very decent human being." Walter
Koenig said he knew the Spock character better than he did Nimoy at
first. "When I finally did get to know the man better I
discovered his compassion, his intelligence and his humanity. All of
which laid the foundation for his keen sense of philanthropy."
Nichelle Nichols wrote, "Leonards integrity and passion as
an actor and devotion to his craft helped transport Star Trek into
television history." Zachary Quinto, who portrayed the younger
Spock character in Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, wrote,
"My heart is broken. I love you profoundly my dear friend. And I
will miss you every day."

In a statement, U.S.
President Barack Obama said he loved the Spock character,
and paid tribute to Nimoy, whom he called a lifelong lover of
the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with
his talent and his time."

Canadian Liberal Leader
Justin Trudeau also joined the outpouring of remembrance for Nimoy.
"For us Trekkies he was  and always shall be  our
friend. #LLAP," Trudeau wrote, using the abbreviation for
Spock's trademark expression "Live long, and prosper."